


A Sky Full of Stars

by nobetterpicture



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8230612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobetterpicture/pseuds/nobetterpicture
Summary: A gentle love story written under the stars





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beltenebra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beltenebra/gifts).



> Written for the very lovely Beltenebra!! This turned out to be a sappy mess and not the silly Alien AU I originally had thought of, but I hope it makes you smile regardless!
> 
> BRING ON MORE GOLDEN PAIR FIC!!! YES!

**I.**

Oishi always has had an interest in the stars.

It started with the summers when he was young and his family went camping. His father loved to point out the different constellations and his mother enjoyed talking about the zodiac. His younger sister, at the time, was too small to understand, but Oishi absorbed it all.

For his 10th birthday, his parents got him a telescope for his birthday and it was the best gift since his tennis racket. Tokyo wasn't an ideal star gazing spot, but that didn't stop him from spending the next few years begging to travel to different parks around the city for meteor showers.

There’s no specific reason why he remains so drawn to the night sky or why he always searches out the stars at night. He wonders if it’s the mystery of the unknown or the calming predictability that no matter where he is, the stars will always be there. In the end, it’s enough for him to name a tennis move after the moon and it’s through tennis that Kikumaru Eiji comes in.

“Hey, Oishi? Is this a telescope?” Eiji’s peaking under his bed, curious about being in his friend’s room for the first time. “Do you like star gazing?”

“Uh.” He’s never really shared his hobby outside of his family and isn’t sure if it’s embarrassing or lame. But Eiji doesn’t wait for his response and pulls out the packaged telescope anyway.

“My sisters really like the stars. They have star charts and check their horoscopes everyday and everything.” The zipper is loud as Eiji opens the case and all protests die in Oishi’s throat as Eiji handles it with surprising care. “I’m not super into it, but I think meteor showers are pretty.”

“Y-yeah…”

At his response, Eiji looks up with a wide smile. “They’re so sparkly, you know?? A sky full of shooting stars!!” He wriggles his fingers to exaggerate and all the tension releases in his shoulders as Oishi fully relaxes.

In their short friendship thus far, he’s learned that Eiji has a habit of doing that to him. There’s something so disarming about his friend and Oishi wishes he could live as happily and carefree. Instead, he enjoys being close to Eiji and it’s that, perhaps, that makes him say the next thing.

“There’s a meteor shower next month.” He looks down at his telescope cradled in Eiji’s lap, then directly in his eyes. “Would you like to watch it together?”

“Ah, really?! Let’s do it!!” Eiji shouts in excitement, throwing his arms up- and then immediately back down to catch the delicate lens. “Hehe, whoops.”

Oishi laughs with him, truly excited to share the night sky with his new partner. With his new friend.

 

**II.**

In their second year of middle school, tennis training takes up most of their time as they both make the regulars. _Golden Pair_ is a name that gets thrown around and while it’s a bit of heavy name, the number of wins beneath their rackets back it up. But that doesn’t mean that they’re unstoppable, especially when they’re apart.

“Oishi!” Eiji is extra smiley and sweaty after a practice game win and Oishi tries to smile back. The memory of his loss with his senpai against Yamabuki is too fresh and he wonders, too much, if it was all his fault.

A hard flick to his forehead pulls him out of his thoughts. “O-I-SHI. Hello?? Is anyone there?”

“OW, Eiji! What is it?”

His partner pouts, a typical occurrence when Eiji’s annoyed, but in a blink it’s gone and he’s being pulled to the club house.

“It’s time to go home! You’re coming over, remember?”

And, oh, Oishi _had_ forgotten.

They quickly change and Eiji skips ahead the entire way to his house, babbling about the new video game that he’d gotten for them to play. The Kikumaru residence is one of Oishi’s favorite places to visit, thanks to the warm welcome he always gets and this time is no different.

Eiji’s mom makes them a lovely dinner and sends them up to Eiji's room with ice cream. The new game they play takes his mind off things for a while and when Eiji asks if he’d like to stay the night, it’s too easy to agree. As Oishi calls his parents, he completely misses his friend’s suspicious grin.

They brush their teeth together and as Eiji hums while cleaning off the bottom bunk, Oishi finally catches on that something’s off.

“Eiji…”

“Lay down, Oishi! I’ll get the light~”

And when he does that, Oishi loses his words. Stuck to the bottom of the bunk bed and down the poles are dozens of glow-in-the-dark stars, clumped together in haphazard clusters. This is not the first time Oishi’s stayed over nor the first time Oishi’s slept in this bed, so he knows that this is new. It's a wonder he missed them until now.

He knows that this has to be for him.

Eiji presses against his side on top of the covers, and Oishi knows without looking that that he’s smiling.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s…Eiji…”

“I noticed that you’ve been down since your loss and well, Inui said that the next meteor shower wasn’t for a few months and like, something about the cloud coverage being bad for star viewing. I dunno, Inui says a lot, you know?” Eiji’s hand smacks him in the nose and it makes Oishi sigh fondly at his expressive partner, even if he can’t see him.

“ANY~WAY~ I saw these at the store and thought ‘hey, if I can’t take Oishi to see the stars to cheer up, I can bring the stars to him! That’ll cheer him up!’ So…” Eiji quiets a bit and leans his head against Oishi’s shoulder. “So…Did it work?”

It takes a moment for Oishi to drag his arm from under the covers and another moment to find Eiji’s hand, but he successfully laces their fingers together. There are so many things he could say to Eiji about how much he cares, about how thoughtful he is, about the way he never fails to make Oishi smile.

Instead, he says—

“Yeah. It did.”

 

**III.**

“Eiji… _EIJI_ slow down!! I can’t see!”

Eiji laughs, but continues to pull the blindfolded Oishi behind him. “That’s the point!”

There’s a huff behind him, but Oishi’s hand squeezes his own and Eiji knows that it’s okay. He’s been planning this surprise for a while now and he’s not going to let anything ruin it. Staring at the ladder, though, makes him realize that maybe pulling Oishi up blindfolded isn’t exactly safe.

“Okay…you can take the blindfold off now. But don’t look!! Just climb the ladder. You can look at that.”

“Don’t look, but look at the ladder.” Oishi laughs. “Okay, Eiji.”

“No teasing either!” He pokes Oishi in the side and then they’re both giggling and going up the ladder.

“Ah- Wait. Why are we here, we _said_ -” Oishi’s looking around and Eiji pokes him again.

“Cheating!! Ruining the surprise!!”

But it’s too late and they obviously both know that they’re at their storage container. The only difference is that it’s covered with a thick blanket Eiji borrowed from Fuji and an electric lantern that Tezuka had. It’s not the best set-up that he dreamed of, but sitting down and looking at the sky behind Oishi, Eiji’s satisfied.

“Eiji?”

Normally when they went star gazing, Eiji couldn’t see Oishi’s face. It was never a big deal since he could barely make out his own two feet, but Oishi loved to talk so highly of the stars and the sky and he always wanted to see the expressions on his face. He wondered if it was the same face he made when he talked about tennis or his fish and it sadly never occurred to him to tilt his flashlight up as they watched for shooting stars.

Now, thanks to Tezuka’s lantern, he’s finally able to see it in the gentle yellow glow and the added effect of constellations in the background almost takes Eiji’s breath away.

He’s always considered Oishi as soft. Soft hearted, soft spoken (outside of tennis and barbecue, of course), soft…in general. Soft in the way his hand landed on Eiji’s lower back so often, soft in the way he smiled when they were together, soft even when their identically callused hands gripped each other when they won a match. Soft in the way that Oishi’s looking at him now- curious and so incredibly trusting.

“Sit down, Oishi!” He forces a smile past the sudden lump in his throat and Oishi’s shoulder is soon pressed warm against his. “We’ve been so busy with studying that I figured you’d have forgotten.”

The lantern easily clicks off as the meteor shower starts and Eiji snorts at Oishi’s gasp.

“So you did forget. Tsk tsk, Oishi~ You get distracted waaaaay too easily. Not even your hobbies can stay in your head!” But then he stops talking and they lean back to enjoy the show.

It’s nice, being able to watch the stars with Oishi again. They haven't done it for a while thanks to tennis and school. He’s still not as interested in them as his sisters or Oishi, really, but with everything in their lives about to change, Eiji finds himself craving the routine comfort that comes with his partner. Especially after his sister told him the compatibility of Taurus and Sagittarius and how they weren’t a pair that would last forever. He’d ripped up the daily horoscopes after that.

At one point he turns away from the sky and watches the silhouette of Oishi’s face instead, wondering once again what his face looks like right now. He wonders if his eyes reflect the sparkle of the stars just as they reflect the warmth of the sunset when they practice late. He wonders if Oishi looks at the stars the same way he looks at him when they win a match. Or just when he looks at him in general.

“Hey, Oishi?”

And like he knows Eiji is watching, Oishi turns his head to the side and the words that he wants to say disappear. But that’s okay.

They spend the rest of the meteor shower staring at each other in the dark like they have all the time in the world, stars falling above them, and Eiji has never felt more at peace.

 

Words about graduation stay with the container, never to be said.

 

**VI.**

In the middle of a new moon and star filled night, Oishi says the three words that have been on his mind for months.

“I love you.”

He can't recall the last time they’ve seen each other, only having time to email or talk on the phone between Oishi's studies and Eiji's tennis. It works for a year, but now it's not enough anymore. Oishi can't lose more sleep over heartache, now that he knows what it is. Fuji said that absence made the heart grow fond, but Eiji’s always been here, always been one call away. Just because they go to different schools doesn't mean anything and Oishi misses that at first.

He tries so hard to live without Eiji, without his smile, without the warm weight on his back, without the way that the mere presence of him made Oishi so much happier.

“I love you.” He says again, voice cracking with nothing but raw honesty.

“Oishi…” Eiji sighs and holds onto him so tightly. It feels so nice. 

“Shuuichirou," He whispers, "The moon is really beautiful tonight.”

And it shouldn’t surprise him that Eiji’s as much of a romantic as him and use such a quote to his face, but he lets out a soft laugh anyway. He gently takes Eiji's face into his hands and finally kisses him like he should have long ago, back on the tennis court or under the stars on their container, and pulls him closer than ever before. When he lets go, it's with the knowledge that it's not for long.

But they kiss one more time to prove it.

 

(When Oishi gets home from Eiji's the next day, he finds an envelope placed in his pocket. Inside is a sheet full of glow-in-the-dark stars and a short note.

_For the darkest nights  
♥ Eiji_

He sticks them next to his bed with a smile.)


End file.
